Riflessioni mediatiche italo-belghe sulla ‘ndrangheta in Belgio 2016-2020

The article aims at updating the vague status of the ‘ndrangheta in Flanders (Belgium), at crossroads between Italy and the Netherlands, by means of a critical reading of recent open sources in Italian and Dutch. We analyze Flemish media representations of the 'ndrangheta (2016-2020), describing how De Standaard, Flanders’ reference newspaper gradually evolved from a focus on an Italian-Calabrian criminal phenomenon towards a more global perspective, following international anti-mafia operations Pollino (2018) and Grimilde (2019).L’articolo mira ad aggiornare la vaga percezione della ‘ndrangheta nelle Fiandre (Belgio), a metà strada fra Italia e Olanda, tramite un’analisi critica delle recenti fonti aperte in italiano e in olandese. La ricerca si concentra sulla rappresentazione mediatica fiamminga della ‘ndrangheta (2016-2020). Si descrive come la rappresentazione mediatica della ‘ndrangheta sul quotidiano di riferimento fiammingo De Standaard gradualmente evolve da un focus su un fenomeno criminale percepito come italo-calabrese verso una prospettiva glocalizzata, dopo le operazioni antimafia internazionali Pollino (2018) e Grimilde (2019)

« Ce n’est pas très beau ce que vous avez dit ! » The activation of resonance in French parliamentary debates

Speakers who engage in the joint activity of a conversation tend to align their utterances with those of their interlocutors by reusing, reinterpreting, hence playing with co-present linguistic material. One dimension of alignment is the activation of resonance, as recently developed within the model of ‘dialogic syntax’ (Du Bois, 2001). When speakers establish cross-turn parallelisms in the form of structural mapping relations, they engage with the form of other speakers’ utterances and activate resonance. The present paper focuses on resonance activation in one particular discourse genre: dialogic sequences evolving around interruptive comments in French parliamentary debates. In line with recent observations within the cognitive-functional context of dialogic syntax (Du Bois, 2001; Sakita, 2006; Zima et al, submitted) and psycholinguistic research on interactive alignment (Pickering & Garrod, 2004, 2006), we demonstrate that resonance can be activated both through explicit repetition of linguistic form and implicit echoing of semantic-pragmatic meaning. With regard to the specific discourse genre of parliamentary debates, we argue that parallelisms at all levels of linguistic organization are witti(ng)ly exploited to serve dissociative pragmatic purposes whereby socio-political positions and power relations are negotiated.      Les locuteurs engagés dans la coordination de l’interaction ont tendance à aligner leurs énoncés en (ré)utilisant ou en réinterprétant ludiquement les matériaux linguistiques introduits par leurs interlocuteurs. Une dimension de l’alignement concerne l’activation de la résonance, concept développé récemment en ‘syntaxe dialogique’ (Du Bois, 2001). Le concept en question réfère à l’effet évoqué entre tours alternatifs par l’établissement de parallélismes sous forme de relations de projection structurelles dans un setting dialogique. La présente contribution se concentre sur la résonance dans un genre discursif particulier: les séquences dialogiques comprenant des les commentaires interruptifs dans les débats parlementaires français. Conformément aux observations récentes dans le contexte cognitivo-fonctionnel de la syntaxe dialogique (Du Bois, 2001; Sakita, 2006; Zima et al., sous presse) et à la recherche psycholinguistique sur l’alignement interactif (Pickering & Garrod, 2004, 2006), nous démontrons que les relations structurelles entre éléments comparables peuvent s’établir et interagir au niveau de la syntaxe, du lexique, de la morphologie, comme sur le plan de la prosodie. Nous montrons en outre que les effets de résonance ne sont pas limités aux parallélismes formels mais sont potentiellement activés par la répétition implicite de segments aux niveaux sémantique ou pragmatique. En ce qui concerne le genre spécifique du débat parlementaire, nous avancerons l’idée que les parallélismes à tous les niveaux d’organisation sont finement exploités en vue d’une série d’objectifs pragmatiques par lesquels sont négociées positions politiques et relations de pouvoir

Multimodal stance-taking in interaction—A systematic literature review

Stance-taking, the public act of positioning oneself toward objects, people or states of affairs, has been studied in many fields of research. Recently, its multimodal realization in interaction has received increasing attention. The current contribution aims to take stock of research on multimodal stance-taking so far, and to present possible avenues for future research. We systematically gathered and appraised 76 articles that investigate the involvement of bodily-visual resources in stance-taking in interaction. The critical appraisal focused on two dimensions of the stance act: form-function relations constituting it, and its dynamic organization in interaction. Regarding form-function relations, we found systematic involvement of specific bodily-visual resources in different stance acts, as well as patterns of multimodal intensification and mitigation of stances. As for its dynamic organization, the review discusses how stance-taking is organized temporally throughout an interaction, with all participants involved carefully negotiating and adapting their stances to one another. Finally, attention is paid to the broader context of stance-taking, including its role in different social and societal contexts. Based on this review, we were able to identify several gaps in the literature, and avenues for future research. We argue that much potential for broadening the scope of research lies in increasing the methodological diversity in approaching multimodal stance-taking, as well as in cross-linguistic studies and varying settings and participant constellations. In conclusion, research into multimodal stance-taking is vibrant, with ample opportunities for future work. This review can be considered as a call to action to move beyond the premise that stance-taking is multimodal, and further investigate this intriguing and fundamental human capacity

Multimodaliteit De taalkunde van woord, beeld en geluid in geschreven teksten Een verkenning van theorie en toepassingen

Introduction lesson for last year secondary school pupilsstatus: publishe

Integrating cognitive interactionism in cognitive grammar

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Taking the trumpet up there Showtime for embodied schemas in music-making bodies

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Embodied intersubjectivity: building bridges between cogling and Merleau-Ponty

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La futurità delle nanotecnologie: per una visione dinamica della definizione terminologica

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Multimodal blending in musical creativity

Christian Lindberg’s quixotry in Jan Sandström’s trombone concerto No. 2 Multimodal blending in musical creativity We will explore the role of multimodality (Kress & Van Leeuwen 2002, Van Leeuwen 1999) and conceptual integration (Fauconnier & Turner 2002) in abstract contemporary music. More specifically, this contribution focuses on the creative work of total musician Christian Lindberg in putting the trombone on the map as a solo instrument. In his trombone concerto No. 2 Don Quixote written for Lindberg, Sandström explores the boundaries of the trombone concerto as the expression of visual/theatrical, musical and textual references to the centuries-old and inexhaustible literary theme of the Don, well known in the symphonic tradition from Purcell, Telemann, Massenet to Richard Strauss, Jacques Ibert, or Norbert Stein and even Jacques Brel: “The trombone slide shall be your lance and with it you will fight windmills." This piece gives a voice to the performer “trying to reach a star in the sky" and brings under the discussion the long tradition of concerto premieres created for the exceptional soloist, from Mendelssohn’s or Haydn’s work to Lindberg tailor-made trombone divertimenti by Berio, Xenakis, Michael Numan, John Cage and M. A. Turnage. We will focus on the interaction between language, gesture, musical tradition and sound techniques such as multiphonics, fluttertongue or valve outs in the creation of abstract meaning and Sandström’s/Lindberg’s reinvention of the concerto genre. In contrast with a received idea in musical theory that music is just the underlying structure for the use of (linguistic) meaning, in our vision, and in line with Zbikowski (2002), musical (re)invention is to just another way of how our brain and language construct meaning and become part of the semiotic and cultural world. References: Fauconnier, Gilles (1997). Mappings in Language and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Fauconnier, Gilles & Mark Turner (2002). Twe Way We Think. Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books. Kress, Günther and Theo Van Leeuwen (2002). Multimodal Discourse: the modes and media of contemporary communication. London: Edward Arnold Lindberg, Christian (2008). The Total Musician. Kassel: Klassik Center. DVD. Van Leeuwen, Theo (1999). Speech, music, sound. London: Macmillan. Zwikowski, Lawrence (2002). Conceptualizing Music. Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Pressstatus: publishe

Translating national image through tourism: nation branding and glocal languaging from Flanders to Italy

Context – The ongoing marketization of public discourse (Mautner 2010) brings together considerations on nation branding (De Michelis 2010), integrated communication in destination marketing, (Kotler et al. 20095) and socio-cognitive discourse analysis (Van Dijk 2005). Marketing discourse may furthermore start a dialogue with imagology in contemporary tourism (Beller and Leerssen 2007, Bonadei and Frediani 2007). More specifically, we deal with the question how political strategies are translated into communication products of Flanders, as this region brings itself to the Italian tourist market (Flemish Government 2009), in Italian. Objectives – Marketing communication essentially deals with the targeting of customer segments, where little importance has been given to the discursive and semiotic analysis of translation in the communication design of customer profiles (Toerisme Vlaanderen 2011). Recently, through the notion of languaging (Cappelli 2010) in tourism, major attention has been devoted to how tourist identities, “in�? and “of�? the marketplace, are put into words. This paper focuses on the tension between the promotion of national specificity and local strengths of historical destinations on the one hand, and, on the other, on their discursive (and not only interlingual) translation, i.e. the rescaling (Blommaert 2010, Fairclough 2006) of image in terms of global discursive traveler identities, through which contemporary foreign customers may access the peculiarities of local destinations (Jaworski and Pritchard 2005, Jaworski and Thurlow 2010). Corpus – We zoom in on some institutional communication products of the Flemish government and its tourism office in Belgium, Toerisme Vlaanderen, and Italy, Turismo Fiandre, as they shape the marketing communication realm for prospective Italian end users, which contains textual blueprints for organizing their spatial and temporal experiences in the imagined destination (Govers 2009, Chilton 2005). The mechanisms used display interdiscursive (Bhatia and Bhatia 2004) adaptations occurring within this supra-and intranational nexus (Scollon and Scollon 2004) connecting macro-levels of the Flemish regional government and their tourism agency Toerisme Vlaanderen, the meso-level of their foreign Milan office (and regional website) Turismo Fiandre, as well as the micro-level of discursive and thematic choices made in end products, like the brand new 2010 general Italian brochure for the Flemish region entitled Flower Power: le Fiandre emozionanti del 2010. Theoretical tenets – We will focus on notions used in socio-cognitive approaches (Sambre 2009, Köller 2010) and the sociolinguistics of globalization (Blommaert 2010) where societal, interactional and textual levels meet. This discursive approach opens pathways to both critical discourse analysis and considerations on social change caused by or causing glocalization (Fairclough 2006, Köller 2007). Descriptive results – We offer an exploratory, conceptual typology for understanding how Flanders recontextualizes (Pritchard and Morgan 2007) itself in the Italian sphere, basically through its historical cities, where past Flemish clichés (monuments, Floralies of Ghent and temples of classical music) vividly mix with trendy urbanism and (e.g. gay, fashion or techno) subcommunities (Pritchard, Morgan and Sedgley 2007, Pritchard, Jones and Morgan in press). As a result, we will better understand how local Flemish image is translated, top-down, into a global or, “so to speak�?, glocal Italian discourse.status: publishe